Thursday Therapy: Park Place in Action

Park Place was my unit for the week. It worked out well for several ages and groups. I read the At the Park chapter from More Mr. and Mrs. Green to K-2. We played Don't Bug Me from Chipper Chat to answer Wh- questions from the chapter for the first session. For the second session, we reviewed the chapter and the students were able to play the game with some verbal cues. Functional Academics needed illustrations and repetition to categorize, as in "A bird flies, a kite flies, a model airplane flies. What do they all do?" 3-5 played by focusing on artic sounds and explaining reasoning behind their answers with good speech sounds and language. They also got the take-home sheet but completed it before they left.

Next week is a continuation of the park and spring theme for FA and K-2. The first game is Rhyme Time at the Park:

The second is Prepositions in the Park:

It's a matching game. It can be used for students not working on prepositions, though.

Here's what I have found with matching games. They are too random. The students never get the matches that actually target their objectives. So I change it up. Because I'm just controlling like that. I start by passing out one set of the matching cards according to objectives.

A student working on language who understands some prepositions might get higher-level ones, like these:

A student working on VC and CVC words would get cards like these:

Then the table looks like this:

Excuse the blurriness. Each student has cards to find. And they are equally divided. That is very important to escape from whines of "Not fair!"

Each student takes a turn choosing one card. They have to turn it over on the table, not snatch it up and place it right in front of their faces. It's a very difficult rule to follow. But a simple flip means everyone gets to see the card. Then, the student makes a sentence about the card. If they have the matching card, they repeat the sentence. If they don't have the matching card, they still make a sentence. When the game is over, everyone gets a smelly for finishing.

The game goes rather quickly. So then the students have time to work on a take-home sheet. Students hit objectives, I get data, and parents get information and home practice.

These games will be great for K-2 but not for 3-5. I'm not sure what I'm doing with them yet.

I do have another reason for having PARKS on the brain! Wanna guess why?